Twitter removed image cropping on iOS, Android apps because it’s biased

Twitter has removed its automated image cropping on Android and iOS apps and has allowed for larger image previews. The algorithmic image cropping that Twitter was using to fit images into preview boxes was problematic on many levels, including being biased on racial and gender grounds.

The platform conducted research of its image-cropping algorithm after many users pointed out that the Twitter algorithm was choosing white people over black ones and males over females in photo crops. The study, titled Image Cropping on Twitter: Fairness Metrics, their Limitations, and the Importance of Representation, Design, and Agency, was conducted by Kyra Yee, Uthaipon Tantipongpipat, and Shubhanshu Mishra. You can check it out here.